That's My Wife

That's My Wife (1929)

**** (out of 4)

Hysterical Laurel and Hardy film has enough gags for two films. Hardy's wife leaves him because she can't stand Laurel living with them. This causes a problem because Hardy's rich uncle is coming over to meet the new wife. With nothing else to do Laurel dresses up as the wife and everything goes to hell. This is now one of my favorite shorts from the duo because of the non-stop physical gags ranging from Laurel falling down a flight of stairs to a crazy scene involving a dance floor. This short is also something new because it adds quite a bit of sexual, Pre-Code laughs including the boys trying to give Laurel breasts and another scene where the two appear to be having sex.

Since the last Laurel & Hardy short I reviewed was Early to Bed, it stands to reason that the next one in my chronological list should be Two Tars but because I already reviewed that one, as well as subsequent ones after that like Habeas Corpus, We Faw Down, Liberty, and Wrong Again under my previous username tavm, I'm now commenting on this one, That's My Wife. I previously watched this on VHS during the '90s when I bought it and I thought it was hilarious then and still do watching it now on YouTube especially when Stan once again dresses in drag, that's for sure! See, Ollie's real wife has left him for the last time because of Stan's staying with them for two years and since his uncle is coming to see them, the only way Mr. Hardy will get his money is if he's with his spouse happily married. I'll just now say this was mostly hilarious from beginning to end. So that's a high recommendation of That's My Wife.

Comic drag routines are a matter of taste, and despite the skill of the comedian involved such sequences can easily cross the line into vulgarity, but for my money the silent two-reeler That's My Wife offers the best of Laurel & Hardy's female impersonation scenarios, thanks to the skill of Stan Laurel and the Hal Roach Studio's crack team of gag writers. The premise that constitutes the plot (i.e. Ollie's uncle will leave him a fortune only if he is happily married) is familiar from many a comedy of stage and screen, and is far-fetched to put it mildly, but the creative team was drawing upon basic elements of stage farce: an absurd demand provokes panic and a hastily contrived deception, which in turn causes bigger complications, which eventually snowballs into disaster. When this formula works as well as it does here, the pay-off is rich.

We know from the opening sequence that Mrs. Hardy (Viven Oakland) is sick and tired of dealing with Stan, her perennial house-guest. She leaves in a huff, just as Ollie receives word that his Uncle Bernal (William Courtwright) is coming for a visit. The eccentric old man has vowed to leave the Hardys enough money for a fine new home—IF they are happily married. Since his uncle has never met Mrs. Hardy, Ollie figures that Stan can play the role for one evening. Stan isn't happy about the scheme, but goes along with it. To dismay of both men, however, Uncle Bernal insists on taking them out to the Pink Pup nightclub, where the masquerade must continue in a public setting.

Stan Laurel ventured into drag on several other occasions, but never so amusingly as in That's My Wife. His reactions throughout are priceless. After a somewhat slow opening the gags in the film's second half are non-stop, and the laxity of the censors in those days before the Breen Office was established allows for some surprisingly risqué material. Case in point: the extended running gag in the nightclub, when jewelry has been dropped down the back of Stan's dress and Ollie attempts to retrieve it. Despite the boys' efforts to be discreet, they are interrupted again and again by other patrons in increasingly embarrassing positions, reminiscent of the repeatedly interrupted pants-switching routine in 'Liberty.' This climaxes in a spectacular humiliation when they accidentally wind up on stage before the entire assemblage, instead of the advertised floor show "Garrick and Lucille in The Pageant of Love." The result? Two middle-aged men, one obviously in drag with wig askew, grappling on the floor doing God knows what. Even today, a startling sight. And yet despite it all, Stan and Ollie retain their childlike innocence, even when engaged in a blatantly dishonest scheme to grab money that, according to the uncle's stipulation, they don't deserve.

Casting note: the drunk in the restaurant who flirts with Stan is played by Jimmy Aubrey, a one-time colleague of both Stan and Charlie Chaplin in the Fred Karno troupe of English music hall players. Subsequently Aubrey starred in his own series of short comedies, which often featured Oliver Hardy in support, but by the late 1920s he was no longer a top-billed comedy star. He has a nice featured role in this film, but worked only sporadically at the Roach Studio. (He's a drunken lodge brother who gets paddled in L&H's 1933 feature Sons of the Desert.) He wound up playing sidekicks in Westerns and doing comic bits in movies for decades. Aubrey lived a very long life, dying at the age of 94 in 1983. Unfortunately he was embittered in his later years, and had nothing good to say about any of his onetime colleagues, including Stan and Ollie!

A very conventional L & H plot. A rich uncle is looking to give the Hardys a large amount of money if they are happily married. Unfortunately, the wife takes off in the opening scene. When the uncle shows up, Ollie gets Stan to pretend to be the wife. This then becomes a steamroller as they try to pull off the charade. There are some particularly funny scenes in a night club. We know things will never work out for these guys. But Stan is a hoot.

Undoubtedly the most hilarious Laurel & Hardy of all - but that's just my opinion. The first time I saw this film I was literally crying from laughter, especially during the lost necklace/dance sequence in the restaurant. Laurel in drag as Hardy's wife is absolutely priceless! No matter how many times I see it, I still laugh out loud, thank heaven for DVD and for Laurel & Hardy for leaving us with so much laughter and happiness!